I'm about to finish my PhD (condensed matter) and I've reached the conclusion that science is just a phase for many of us. My university hosts a Beyond Academia

I'm about to finish my PhD (condensed matter) and I've reached the conclusion that science is just a phase for many of us. My university hosts a Beyond Academia event where companies come to recruit future phds, there's a student-run club that brings in people outside academia that hold a phd to talk to us about their path and current jobs, and as I've attended these events over the last four years I see example after example of brilliant people simply having to move on from science. It's staggering to see your Stanford and your Harvard grad students become scientific experts only to then work on improving ad delivery and how to move someone else's money across the world to make the rich richer. It feels wasteful. But there's no room for everybody, there's very little room for a few and it's stressful, competitive and the path is riddled with anxiety and mental illness, which I've had enough of already in grad school. People move to data science because it's a transition into the software industry that is eating the world. It's a safer bet, pays well, and has the name "science" in it :) It helps people transition. I've stalked many on linkedin over the years and it does seem that science is just a phase, very few are still doing science. I think all these people liked or loved research, but the combination of the nasty, petty environment surrounding research, and the lack of permanent positions makes it very difficult for someone to have a fruitful, worthwhile career in science in my opinion. I think we have a problem. We have a lot of smart people but we don't know what to do with them. And I think no one up high is really questioning what is the purpose of a college education and of a post graduate education in order to modify these programs to better address a student's path. Academia changes one funeral at a time, and that might be too slow to tackle some of the problems we are facing. I've really enjoyed the research aspect, but I have come to hate my interactions with my PI who is sometimes too busy doing administrator stuff and in my opinion sometimes refuses to see reality for what it is: Sometimes to do modern research you have to invest in modern equipment. Sometimes I don't understand why my data looks a certain way, why is anger the default reaction to this? I haven't had enough time and space to gauge whether or not this phd is worth it, all I know is that I'm really excited to leave an environment that has broken me a few times, and that continues to inflict pain on others I love.